I have found one of the biggest challenges that I face when working on a project is focus.  Whether it’s writing a blog article or cleaning the house, it is so easy to get distracted.  Our minds, which keep thinking of stuff not associated with what we’re doing, don’t help.  We are constantly having thoughts pop into our head: “I have to remember to call Bob.” or “I need to buy more paper towels next time I go to the store.” or “What was the name of the guy who sang that song?”.  We have two choices.  We can ignore the thought that pops in our head and focus back in on our current project, or we can stop what we’re doing, act on the new thought, and then get back to the project.  This costs us time and it’s hard to get back in the rhythm of what we were doing.

An easy solution to this is to create an Idea Sheet.  It is very simple to implement and using one creates huge benefits.  Actually making an idea sheet is easy.  Take a piece of paper (bigger is better), and put it on your desk or table, wherever you are working the most.  Write “Idea Sheet” somewhere on the piece of paper, and you now have an Idea Sheet.  To use the Idea Sheet, simply write out any ideas or thoughts that aren’t topical to what you are currently working on but that you want to remember or act on in the future.  It’s that simple.

Although very simple, it is also very powerful.  The idea sheet has three main benefits:

First, your mind only has so much conscious thinking ability, like the RAM in a computer.  When you try to keep things stored in your conscious mind, it tends to prevent you from using that brain-power for something else (this was well explained in David Allen’s Getting Things Done).  By writing down the thoughts in your head, you are allowing them to clear out of your conscious thinking, and this gives you the ability to focus better.

The second benefit of the Idea Sheet is that you don’t lose the good ideas that you have and the important things that you want to remember.  For example, if you are at work finishing up a quarterly fiscal report, and you suddenly remember that you need to pick up the drycleaning on the way home, you can put it on your Idea Sheet and you won’t forget it.  Also, when you are working on a project, it’s common to have great ideas about other projects associated with the one in front of you at the moment.  It’s easy to jot those thoughts down so that you can work at them another time.

This brings us to the third benefit, which is that the Idea Sheet prevents you from getting distracted from the project you are working on.  If you acted on every thought that popped in your head, it would be hard to get any one project done, as you bopped from doing one thing to another.  Even if you just take care of something for a few minutes, it can easily take 5, 10, or even 15 minutes until you are refocused on what you are doing in the first place.  The Idea Sheet gives you a way to take just a few seconds, jot down a note, and then get right back to the matter at hand.

The Idea Sheet is especially handy because it keeps all of these random thoughts in the same place.  You can then process these notes when you have the time.  I suggest you do it regularly on a daily or weekly basis.  This prevents good ideas from slipping through the cracks.  If you have more than one Idea Sheet, you can use this time to consolidate them into one, and choose when you are going to act on each idea.

In this way, you can stay focused and capture all of your ideas – think of what that will do for your productivity!

I’ve read the 4–Hour Work Week twice now, in detail.  The first time I read it I was so blown away that I had to put it down, digest it, and then come back for a second go.  I think I was checking to see if I would still think it was great – which I did.  Timothy is basically starting with the premise that the way we work, the 9–5, forty year grind, is rarely in alignment with what we want to get out of life.  His goal is to show how to live like the “New Rich”, a group of individuals he feels shares common goals and lifestyle choices – such as working less hours, but being much more productive with that work time, and living a full life in the present instead of delaying it until after retirement.

Don’t get me wrong, this book doesn’t have all the keys to living the idyllic life.  I have to say that I think there are parts of the 4–Hour Work Week that are completely brilliant and that other parts are horribly and painfully wrong.  I found that there were three types of ideas in the book: 1. Ideas that fired me up, 2. Ideas that initially put me off because they challenged me to get out of my comfort zone (which I think is good), and 3. Ideas that I think just don’t work.  This doesn’t detract from the book -actually it’s one of the most important things about it.   You learn from the books you disagree with just as much, if not more, than the ones you agree with.

Ideas, Implications, and Questions:

• There were a lot of things I took away from Timothy’s book, so I’m not going to write out everything (this review would be way too long), but really, Timothy is examining what is important in our day to day operations to get us to our larger goals.  By even focusing on the idea of the value of my daily activities, by making me hold a mirror up to myself, I was able to make some powerful changes.
• “Challenging the status quo vs. being stupid … different is better when it is more effective or more fun.” (pg 30).  Too often we try to be different just to be different.  I think this is a great formula for measuring when you should buck the trends, and when you should go with the flow.
• The idea of having many mini-retirements in life instead of waiting until the end of your career makes a lot of sense to me.
• His focus on the 6 month goal deadline (or dreamline) as opposed to the really long term goals makes sense to me.  While I think there is some value in having a general idea of where you want your life to go in the far future, it’s hard to conceptualize.  Also, many people don’t make long-term goals because they know intuitively that their goals will change over time.  Thus, they get stuck with no goals and no direction.  The six month timeline is long enough to focus your energy but not so far away that it loses its vitality.  I’ve made some 6 month goals that I find are stretching me but also keeping me motivated and active
• I think he misstates the Pareto principle a little for effect, but the points he makes about how we spend our time are invaluable.  I often recommend clients read his thoughts about how to focus on the best customers because I think he explains effective time use well.
• “There should never be more than two mission critical objectives to complete each day” (pg 79).  Get those two things done each day (and do them right away) and your business will thrive.
• He assumes that when you start your own web business – your muse – that it will be successful and you’ll make lots of money.  He pays lip service to the idea of experimentation, but he makes it seem like it’s a simple and quick process that will lead naturally to something that will help you make a lot of money.  It’s nice that it happened for him, I’ve just found the real world to be a little more messy and uncertain – and that’s OK.
• His ideas about reducing how much information you take in reinforce my own ideas about how to deal with the information glut in our culture right now.
• There’s a lot more that I got from it, but instead of me telling you – go read the book yourself.

Should you read this book?

Absolutely yes.  There is something here for everyone to learn.  Different people will definitely be attracted to different parts of the book; but I feel that Timothy elucidates some of the main obstacles that people run into when they are trying to break out of the “rat race” (and how to avoid them).  I know that this is a great reference book for me to have in my library, and I suggest you put it in yours as well.

Imagine this scenario.  You pick up the phone to call a prospective customer.  You dial the number and wait as the phone rings.  When they pick up on the other end, you identify yourself and the company you are with.  Instead of a string of objections you hear, “I’ve been waiting for you to call.  When can we meet?”.

That’s a common occurrence when you are calling a prospect who has been referred to you by a previous client.  When you are calling referrals the many layers of resistance and stalling have already been stripped away because you have a connection with the prospect – you know someone they trust.

One way to increase the number of referrals you get is to understand why your clients want to give you referrals.  If you keep these reasons in mind, you’ll find that you can get more referrals and build your business faster and easier.

1. People like helping other people

We all have a natural instinct to help others.  It makes us feel good and connects us with the people around us.  Think about the time and money people donate to non-profit charities – this demonstrates that people like to give help to others.  You might not be a non-profit organization, but you can let your clients know that giving referrals is a way they can help you out.  Don’t be afraid to share the fact that referrals are a big help to you as you go about your business life.

2. The client likes the salesperson

If someone has purchased a product or service from you, there’s a pretty good chance they like you as an individual.  It’s very rare that we buy from people we don’t like.  These positive feelings further support the above idea that people enjoy helping others; we get positive feelings out of helping people in general, but especially out of people that we like.  Remember that the personal relationship you have with your clients is a big part of why they will give you referrals.

3. The customer like the products

Most salespeople mistakenly think that this is the main reason that people give referrals.  It is important, but as we’ve already seen, there are other powerful reasons as well.  People are most excited about the products and services they invested in right when they choose to buy and right when they receive what they purchased.  Use these times of natural excitement to leverage the good feelings the customer has about you – these are the best times to ask for referrals.  Also, make sure the customer is happy with their purchase before you ask for referrals; if there is a problem, find it and solve it first.

4. The customer is asked for referrals

This is the most important reason people give referrals – you ask for them.  Too many salespeople just assume that the customer will volunteer referrals because they are so enamored with the product and the representative.  Not true!  Don’t leave referrals “on the table” because you didn’t ask for them.  Often it doesn’t matter how you ask for referrals, just as long as you do ask for them.  Referrals are on the top of your mind, but they aren’t on the top of the customer’s list of things to think about.  Be sure to take the time to ask for referrals.

By keeping these four points in mind, you’ll find that you increase the number of referrals you get from your past customers.  Learn to look at things from your customer’s point of view, and you’ll find the referral process simpler.  The “hows” are always easier when you understand the “whys”.

The phone is a common source of anxiety for salespeople.  Whether making cold calls, warm calls, or just following up with existing clients, being on the phone can be stressful.  From setting up sales appointments to making sales over the phone, it is also one of the most important part of the sales process.  This also means that the phone is where most rejection happens, and therefore it’s easy to want to avoid it.  Most salespeople are looking for ways to improve, not only their skill on the phone, but their level of enthusiasm for making calls.

A simple tool to both improve results on the phone and make it less stressful is to track the results of your phone calls.  Most salespeople have an anecdotal relationship to making phone calls.  That means that they think in terms of stories.  They have a narrative about how their phone time went the last time they made calls, and about their skill on the phone in general.  What happens is that small pieces of their experience (possibly a really mean customer or a bad result) expand in their story, way out of proportion to the actual phone activity, you can deflate the power of the negative stories and also find where you can improve your business results.

All it takes to track phone calls is a piece of paper in front of you when you make phone calls.  Put the date and time you are making phone calls on the top.  Put a row of hashmarks on the first line – one for each call you make.  Underneath the first row of marks, put a second hashmark if you talk to the person you were calling (voice mail or messages don’t count).  And you can put a third row of hashmarks that indicate success – an appointment or a sale, for example. 

There are a lot of ways that you can modify this basic system, and you can capture a lot of different types of information.  Remember, though, the simpler it is, the more likely you’ll use it.  And by tracking this information, you’ll have a snapshot of how your calls went – not how you feel they went.  If you keep these call tallies you can even build up a solid body of data about how your calls go over time.  This lets you find out the most efficient times to call, or you can see the effects of a different phone approach.  You’ll know how many calls you made exactly, and how many people were there (no more saying “no one was available". 

There is an old sales adage that says “performance measured is performance improved”.  Tracking your telephone activity will allow you to take away the fear and replace it with evidence – which will make your calls that much easier and that much more effective.

Was the Buddha wise because the Buddha quoted the Buddha?

Think about it.

It’s pretty obvious that there are a lot of sales books on the market.  If there is any doubt in your mind, just look at the bookshelf full of them at your local Barnes and Noble.  I tend to read less and less of them, because once you’ve read twenty, you realize they all say the same thing.  I picked up Jim’s book because I was recommended to it by a client. 

Most of my work is focused on improving the person beyond the sales process, but it’s still important to look at the process itself.  Written in 1990, this book would have been in the forefront of the evolution of sales from a transactional process to a relationship process (it’s called Relationship Selling, but it’s hard to say that this was the seminal book).  Even though relationship selling is a buzzword that has been and gone, the concept remains incredibly valuable

Implications, Ideas, and Questions

• A powerful concept Jim talks about is how both customers and salespeople have different personalities.  This is pretty much a given, but he points out that often salespeople expect the customer to adjust to their personality, and not the other way around.  This is backwards – a sales rep should adjust to their customer.
• He talks about using questions and he created some categories for questions that were very effective (pg 61–62):
• Clarifying – to bring your information together to see if you’re on target
• Verifying – to check your conclusions, data, or facts or to confirm an existing conclusion
• Expanding – to seek new information on a subject you are already discussing
• Directing – changing the direction of the conversation or bringing up a new subject
• I teach my clients about how to find an individual’s “hot button”, or what’s most important to them in their decision making process.  Jim calls this hot button the dominant buying motive (pg 67) and I think that’s a fantastic name.

Should you Read this Book

If you are looking to refine or define your sales process, yes.  A lot of the material seems obvious in most current sales cultures, but when this book first came out, it was probably a little more on the edge.  The marketing and prospecting material is a little basic and not as helpful, but it’s a great foundation if you are trying to build more relationships through your sales process. 

A great quote from his concluding thoughts (pg 119):

“We judge ourselves by our intentions, but others judge us by our actions.”

You need to read more.  No, I haven’t been stalking you and writing notes about when you read, what you read, and how many pages you read.  It’s just a general statement that I think pretty much applies across the board.  People don’t read enough – and there are some significant advantages if you increase your consumption of printed material.  Reading is the fastest and most direct way of expanding your abilities by accumulating knowledge.

Not just any printed material, though.  In some ways, we are reading more than ever.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines, new websites pop up every second, and the latest blockbuster novel easily sells into the millions of copies.  Barnes and Noble stores dot the landscape and Amazon.com lists millions of titles.  So maybe I’m not talking about the quantity of your reading; I’m talking about the quality of what you read.

I’m not trying to be elitist, but reading fluff doesn’t help.   There’s nothing wrong with reading for entertainment, but if that’s all you do, you’re in trouble.  It’s like TV – there are some fascinating shows on PBS, but if all you are watching is reality shows on MTV, it doesn’t matter.   You have to be aware of what you are letting into your “sphere of attention”.  If it’s just the latest celebrity gossip, there might be some room for improvement.

There is so much information out there; it is getting harder to sift through everything to get to the good stuff.  The signal to noise ratio, the amount of “static” to the signal, is incredibly high.  Because there is a glut of information – most of it vacuous – you have to be much more deliberate if you want to get to the valuable material.  It’s like listening to an old AM radio station; sometimes you really have to tweak the dial to get the signal.

So what do I think you should read?  Things that make you think.  I’m not talking about reading a newspaper to find out the latest soundbite about politics and thinking you are informed.  There are a lot of great books, magazines, and websites out there that offer you the opportunity to work your brain a bit.  If you like reading fiction, for example, there’s nothing wrong with reading the latest Crichton book, just balance it with some of the classics that will challenge you (as a side note, those books they made you read in high school are a lot better when no one is making you read them). 

Why do I think you should read more?  You have to exercise your brain.  Reading is a great way to gather information so that you can have more options when you respond.  “Respond to what?” you might ask.  Life, the universe, everything.  You don’t have to agree with everything you read; in fact the more you read, the more you’ll be able to decide whether or not you do agree with the author.  Being educated isn’t based on a diploma, it’s based on continually learning.  Reading is a way to continually re-examine the way you are navigating through life. 

Instead of coming up with ideas all on your own, you can get input from wise people.  Some of those wise people are individuals in your life, some of them are at the local library.

A lot of people were asking about my mom’s award-winning chili.  She was generous enough to share the recipe so you can make it in your kitchen.  Thanks, Mom!

Black Bean Chili from Mary Fisher's Kitchen

Ingredients

3 pounds ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup green pepper
2 or 3 cans black beans - rinsed and drained
2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 can tomato sauce
1 large can crushed tomato
                   

 Spices

5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cumin
2 teaspoons dried minced onion
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ginger
 
Mix spices together and add to browned meat, onion, green pepper, beans and tomato products.  Simmer for hours or until really hungry.
 
ENJOY!